Lucas Oil Stadium is expected to fill a capacity of approximately 68,000 fans come Super Sunday. / Robert Scheer/The Star

Written by

Zak Keefer

Confirmed from NFL Vice President of Communications Brian McCarthy, Lucas Oil Stadium’s “approximate” capacity for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis on Feb. 5 will be 68,000.

According to McCarthy, the NFL is building extra, temporary seating sections beyond the 254 temporary seats that have already been installed, inspected and approved by safety crews.

More factors that could play into the final attendance figures: there will be additional standing room tickets in the suites that increase the capacity, and the NFL is filling in platforms that are not normally used during regular season games but are typical for the Super Bowl.

That would place Indy’s Super Bowl among the five smallest ever, sandwiched amidst XXXVII in San Diego (67,603) and XL in Detroit (68,206). The smallest Super Bowl ever was the very first one at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where 61,946 watched the Green Bay defeat Kansas City. The largest Super Bowl came in 1980, when the Oakland Raiders downed the Los Angeles Rams 31-19 in front of 103,985 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

Winners will be randomly selected from a pool of officers, firefighters, teachers, military personnel and nurses in New England who have been identified as “Super People” by the superiors. Two winners from each category will receive an all-expenses paid, one-day trip to Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis for them and a guest, including game tickets, round-trip airfare, transportation to and from the game and tickets to the Patriots’ postgame party.

The Ravens loss to the Patriots was seen by 48.7 million viewers, while the Giants victory over the 49ers drew 57.6 million.

And on the food front: Americans are expected to consume plenty of chicken wings during the Super Bowl. To be exact: 1.25 billion. That’s roughly 100 million pounds of chicken.

That’s according to a new report by the National Chicken Council and the Huffington Post. If the wings were laid end-to-end, they could circle the circumference of the Earth more than twice, which is about a quarter of the way to the moon.

To no surprise, Super Bowl Sunday is the most popular day for wing eating for the whole year.

In other newsiness from the Star’s Super Buzz blog, CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell said on ESPN’s Mike and Mike in the Morning that Indianapolis might be the ideal city to host the NFL’s annual world championship game and the festivities that go along with it.

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“Indianapolis is the best Super Bowl city I’ve ever seen,” Rovell told the show’s hosts, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic. “For example, when you go to New Orleans, you go to the parties which are a big part of the weekend. You can pretty much go to one party a night. It takes an hour or two to get five miles. Indianapolis is like eight blocks. The parties that are taking place in the same place Thursday and Friday night, you can walk. The whole weekend experience you can’t discount. Indy is a tremendous city.”